I can go to pretty much any nursery that sells citrus in Florida and ask for a 'tangerine tree' and be perfectly understood. They are sold that way as trees and they are sold that way as fruit and always have been here. The word isn't going to go away no matter how much our mandarin fandarins try to make it so! Grasp the nettle Joe and come to terms with it.

.....Alan.

We already know the advantages and shortcomings of Swingle and Tanaka's naming system of citruses.

Within the context of international naming, such as from our dear friend Steve in Germany, I am recommending and using the combination of most of the naming system which many scientists have agreed. The book is called "Citrus of the World: A Citrus Directory"

Originally developed from EGID, a computerized database system for Citrus network

EGID (French acronym for 'Evaluer, Gérer, Informatiser, Diffuser'), was developed at the INRA-CIRAD Agronomic Research Station, San Giuliano (Corsica), for storing basic information on the botanical and pomological traits of the Citrus collection comprising 1160 accessions of scion varieties, rootstocks and Citrus relatives. The system is based on the original IPGRI descriptors for Citrus, published in 1988. The database comprises written information in text, numbers and dates, pomological pictures for assisting users interested by variety description of fresh fruit or processing. Part of the data can be consulted via the Internet web server. Citrus of the World, a Citrus directory (available in PDF format). Subscription form to join the EGID Citrus network. French version.

Take note that even in such a comprehensive compendium of citrus names directory, the word Tangerine was only mentioned in one line of text in the citrus directory listing, and only as a hybrid: Satsuma x Tangerine, and nowhere else was it mentioned in version 2.00 of the book that was published in September 2002. So the Tangerine name do not fit very well.

I have a link to download the online version of that book many years ago and shared with a lot of you by posting the links here, and sadly, the online PDF is gone, the Network Organization needed funding, so buying the book would help them. I'll be buying the newest directory soon and use it as my main reference for citrus names as the scope is international, and combines many details of Tanaka and Swingle and other scientists involved with citrus growing.

"When one is interested in citrus fruits, the complexity of the plant group quickly becomes apparent. Scientists do not make exceptions for the fact that over the last 300 years a number of important taxonomic classifications have been proposed, each different in their own way, for the Citrus genus. Add to this the large variety of local names; some resulting from local oral traditions, others from the commercial arena of the second largest global fruit market after grapes, and it is easy to understand why nothing is simple in the garden if the Hesperides. This directory, the result of collabarations between scientists from several countries with a tradition of citriculture who share the same interest in citrus fruits, is the first stage of the desire for standardisation and classification of the Citrus genus. It builds on the classification of Tanaka which, while not universally accepted, has the advantage of being very detailed. Annexed are equivalencies with the classification of Swingle are given so that each may make their own choice. Pictures, arranged alphabetically by variety, indicate; every known name (local, orthographic, commercial,...), the latin binomial name generally taken from the classification of Tanaka, and the standardised name. A list of the names of hybrids completes this directory. This document is one of the products resulting from the computerisation of the decades old fruit collections in research centers. It is also a first stage towards the pooling of the information available from the sites which, being hetrogenous in structure, are difficult to align together. "

In the context of the United States perspective such as what the original poster was asking the word tangerine is well understood. This is the same sort of silliness as the breeders of show birds who insist we use the word "cock" instead of rooster or the goat breeders who insist on using the word "buck" instead of billy. That sort of insistence causes more confusion with more people than simply allowing folks to use the words that we all understand.

The word tangerine is not going to go away no matter how much some would like it to and insisting on using the word mandarin only serves to drift otherwise useful threads into something else.

If we want to be anal about it then we should simply eliminate the word 'orange' in all citrus descriptions in all contexts other than peel color since we all know now that all oranges are simply hybrids from their original progenitor species. No oranges, no lemons, no limes, no grapefruit. All inaccurate. All only "marketing terms."

By your own descriptions you've stretched the word 'mandarin' so far as to become essentially meaningless.

.....Alan.

You're wrong Alan! It wasn't my own definition. And I don't know if you have read the follow-up posts in apublication where Roger Smith stated that because of the wide diversity that fits the definition of mandarin, the mandarins are broken down further to, Satsumas, Clementines, Seedless Mandarins, and other mandarins.

Quote:

To make this large group of varieties easier to discuss, th ey will be bro ken down into four smaller groups t h at make sense from a marketing and a horticultural pers p e c t ive : • S atsumas Mandari n s • Clementines Mandari n s • Other Seedless Mandari n s • Other Mandarins

I don't know how it can be meaningless when it was clarified in the follow-up posts. But neither from the California Growers perspective nor from the directory of the most credible citrus naming standards "Citrus Of the World" is the word tangerine considered as horticultural type.

So what cultivar is a tangerine? Can you get me its cross-referenced name in the Citrus of the World directory aside from the Satsuma x Tangerine hybrid?

And exciting things coming from Australia, which I hope they will add more richness to our love of citruses, and hopefully be included in the directory of Citrus of the World.

"Phylogenetic relationships of the Australasian citrus: the Citreae tribe in a world context. Randall Bayer and Sarah Rich, CSIRO, Plant Industry, Centre for Plant Biodiversity Research and the Australian National Herbarium, GPO Box 1600, Canberra, ACT, 2601, AUSTRALIA The agricultural production of citrus has flourished worldwide for centuries due to both its ornamental and culinary value. The citrus fruits and their wild relatives belong to the Rutaceae family, within the subfamily Aurantioideae. The subtribe Citrineae (tribe Citreae) is a group of these plants which are unique in bearing fruits containing pulp vesicles that fill all the space in the segments of the fruit not occupied by the seeds. They are almost exclusively native to China and the South Pacific region, including Australia. Their unique fruit are the basis for one of the most important fruit industries in warm countries of the world due to the great commercial importance of the juice extracted from species of the genus Citrus. Wild members of Australasian Citreae, some of which are quite rare in the wild, are anticipated to possess genes which provide a number of beneficial traits for growth in the Australian environment and therefore it is predicted they will be useful in citrus breeding programs. Breeding programs are already investigating native members resistance to salt, boron and the cold but the breeding of new, high quality Citrus cultivars is dependent on reliable information about the relationships of species in genera within the tribe Citreae. Over the last 250 years a number of taxonomic classifications have been proposed for the plants contained within the tribes and subtribes of the Aurantioideae. The tribe Citreae contains three subtribes the Citrinae, Triphasiinae and the Balsamocitrinae. Within the Citrinae the genus Citrus itself has been variously described as consisting of from 1 to 162 species. Closely related to the genus Citrus are several genera, which were recognized by W.T. Swingle, including the genera Clymenia, Eremocitrus, Fortunella, Microcitrus, and Poncirus. Recent work has questioned the distinctness of these genera and some botanists now include them within an enlarged concept of the genus Citrus. CSIRO is aiming to provide a molecular-based phylogeny of members within the tribe Citreae based on chloroplast DNA sequences. DNA was extracted from the leaves of samples conserved in the Australian National Botanical Garden, Canberra; U.S. Department of Agriculture Citrus Research Station, Riverside; and CSIRO’s Horticultural Research Station, Merbein, Victoria. Three regions from the chloroplast genome; the trnL intron and trnL - trnF intergenic spacer (1300 base pairs); the rpsL16 intron (1460 base pairs) and the atpB coding region (1100 base pairs) have sequenced. The close relationship of Clymenia, Eremocitrus, Fortunella, Microcitrus, and Poncirus to Citrus has been confirmed and the need for conservation of Citrus germplasm reiterated."

In California, some of the mandarins are sold as Cuties, and they are comprised of actually different types of mandarin cultivars such as small sized satsumas (many sub-types here too), other clementines, clemenules, Tango, even the seeded W.Murcott grown in large monoculture plots (to be seedless), and others.

Well, Joe,
in the Citrus of the World you will find the Tangerine under "Dancy" which is still mentioned a "Christmas Tangerine" and classified as Citrus tangerina
And, there are others...

Joe Real is absolutely correct. The word "Tangerine" is just a made up word, created by the industry simply as a marketing tool to sell more fruit. The word "Tangerine" has no scientific validity. There is no satisfactory distinction in meaning between "mandarin" and "tangerine". The word mandarin is of much older usage. The earliest use of "tangerine" (1841) is a synonym for mandarin. The name was originally spelled "tangierine" because fruits were imported from Tangiers in Morocco to England. At one time it was customary to separate the varieties with yellow-orange rind as mandarins and those with reddish- orange rinds as tangerines, but this also has no scientific standing. Using the word tangerine is much the same as calling a dollar a buck. In this particular case, the making up of a word, and then applying that "word" to an already known commodity is what causes confusion. - Millet

Add to the fact that most citruses are nucellar, and many taxonomists have been fooled that citrus hybrids were distinct species and not distinct hybrids. The nucellarity have helped blurred the lines of defining what a species is.

The fact that field researchers are often done indpendently in various countries throughout the world, and there is no comprehensive online taxonomic guide that can be accessed for confirmation and comparisons, we have different scientific names assigned to the same item and one scientific name assigned to various distinct species. Add to that the marketing department who often have no clue about the horticultural origins of what they are marketing, and voila, we have all of these to sort out from time to time.

Anyway, call it what you want, as long as you can describe to me the specimen or its other acceptable synonym so that we would know we are talking about the same item.